Content Study of Regional Newspapers by the Hoot[1]

8/6/2019 Content Study of Regional Newspapers by the Hoot[1]

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WHAT MAKES NEWS: A CONTENT STUDY OF REGIONAL MEDIA

The Hoot.org did a study of regional newspaper coverage over a two month period which extended from mid September to mid November 2010. A sample survey wasdone of 10 regional newspapers, chosen to represent the North, South, East and West of the country, were studied to see if there were discernable patterns in their coverage.The highest circulated English and Regional language paper in each of five states weretaken. It was a sampling of 30 days across 60 days (every alternate day.) We took all stories in the main editions of each paper, minus the sports and editorial pages, and minus the supplements. The idea was to see what constitutes news in the general news pages. The statistics for sports in our study, relates to sports coverage in thesenewspapers, which occurred outside sports pages.

Summary Findings

Overall, politics dominates the news, followed by business.

English newspapers in India however, carry more business than political news.

Thirty nine per cent of all political news was party related.

Crime and violence account for the third highest category of news, followed bynews relating to governance and legal matters.

Agriculture related news accounts for only 0.9 percent of the news

Environment related stories account for 3.0 per cent of all coverage.

Education constituted 4 per cent of all news. School education received lessthan one third of the coverage given to higher education during the period of thestudy.

The focus of the news carried was of a general nature in 62.3 per cent of thestories, urban or city oriented in focus in 30.4 per cent of the cases, and only 3.1per cent of all news had a rural focus.

The Bengali papers had the highest focus on rural news, with 11.5 per cent of Ananda Bazar Patrikas news classified as rural, and 6.9 per cent of the news inthe Telegraph. Much of the rural focus news in West Bengal is political violencerelated news originating from the rural areas

The news tends to be highly miscellaneous in nature.


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In terms of origin of news carried national news got a slight edge in all the paperstaken together perhaps because major events happened during this period.

National news was 27.8 per cent, news originating at the state level 22.3 per cent, and local or city news 25.2 per cent.

Fourteen percent of the total news was attributed to news agencies, with PTIaccounting for more than 50 per cent.

Eeenadu of Andhra Pradesh had the most range of coverage. It had the mostpolitical coverage, as well as the most agriculture, science and governance-related news. It had more economy and business coverage than the Deccan

Chronicle, and far more than other regional language papers except Gujarat Samachar . It also had the lowest incidence of crime and violence news amongall the newspapers. Its international coverage is low, at 2.1 per cent compared to

FULL REPORT

Overview

Which issues dominate coverage in Indias highest circulating region-specificnewspapers? And which ones receive very little coverage, across the board? Are there

any discernable regional patterns to the kind of news which dominates?Our study took ten newspapers in five states. All stories on the general news pages inthe following newspapers were taken: Hindustan Times (Delhi), Dainik Jagran (Delhi),Telegraph, Ananda Bazar Patrika, Deccan Chronicle, Dinathanti, the Hindu (Chennai),Times of India (Ahmedabad), and Gujarat Samachar. Each of these is the highestcirculated English or regional language papers in its state.

Overall, in quantitative terms the single highest category of news was, perhapsunsurprisingly, political news. It constituted 15.7 percent of the total news items codedfor the quantitative survey. A total of 20,797 news items were coded, in five states.

The second highest category of news overall, falls in the category of economy andbusiness, at 13.6 per cent of the total.


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Legend: Agri Agriculture; Art; C&V Crime and Violence; Chd Child related; Conf Conflict; E&B Economy and business; Edu Education; Env Environment; Gen Gender; Gov Governance; Hth Health; I/A/M Incident/Accident/Mortality; Infr-Infrastructure; Int International; L&O Law and order; Leg Legal; Med Media;Mig Migration; Pol Politics; Sci Science; Soc Social; Spt Sport; Wat Water.

However, all the English newspapers had more business and economy coverage, thanpolitical coverage. Among regional language newspapers it was the reverse with theexception of Gujarat Samachar. This paper had 21.1 per cent of its total coveragedevoted to business, 16.9 per cent to politics.)

The third most voluminous category of news in leading daily newspapers was crime andviolence (8.7 percent) , followed by news on governance as a category (8 per cent).The fifth highest category of news was legal. Even after excluding the sports pages,

sports still accounted for 4.3 percent of the total news, most of it in the two Delhinewspapers, on account of the Commonwealth Games being held here during thisperiod.

How much coverage does agriculture receive, in a country where it constitutes thehighest source of employment? The figure is 0.9 per cent. Stories on water constituted0.4 per cent. Environment, comparatively, does make news (3.0).

The social sector fares only slightly better. The percentage of news items on educationwas 4.0 per cent, health, 2.9 per cent, children and gender 0.6 per cent each.

The focus of the news carried was of a general nature in 62.3 per cent of the stories,urban or city- oriented in focus in 30.4 per cent of the cases, and 3.1 per cent of allnews had a rural focus. In terms of origin of news carried national news got a slightedge in all the papers taken together perhaps because major events happened duringthis period. National news was 27.8 per cent, news originating at the state level 22.3per cent, and local or city news 25.2 per cent.

Fourteen percent of the total news was attributed to news agencies, with PTI accountingfor more than 50 per cent.

Some of the findings were skewed by the dominant news of the period under study.Religion dominated the category of news classified as society-related, partly because of the Ayodhya coverage, and partly because the study was conducted over two monthsspanning the festival season.


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also did not include the one page of news from the Economic Times, carried in theDinathanti every day.

There is more news relating to employment and labour in the regional languagepapers, than in the English ones. The most news in this category appears in Dinathanti,

followed by Eenadu and Ananda Bazar Patrika. By far the most news on the publicsector appeared in (28.4 per cent of its total economy and business coverage).

Crime and violence

This constitutes the third highest category of news found in the regional press. Sixtythree per cent of crime news is in the general category, 13.3 per cent relates to gender,and 10.5 per cent relates to terrorism. The paper which had the most news related tocrime and violence was Dinathanti.

Governance

This tends to be a catch- all category related to administration in government,educational institutions, and civil bodies. It includes news on promotions, securityissues, corporation news, and so on. Andhra Pradesh as a state had the most newsclassified as governance. It constituted 12.9 per cent of the news in the DeccanChronicle and 15 per cent of the news in Eenadu. But overall, for all the papers takentogether, governance as a category constitutes 7.8 per cent of the news.

Sample headlines in one paper , Deccan Chronicle :

Guv wants cops to learn new tricksDriving test gets easier JNTU disallows 5,000 studentsSeparate GOs for collagesState may seek aid from forcesCRPF firing range gets state nodPallam raju sees private players in missile techDirectors slam AI managementCommentary not needed, PC tells J&Kinterlocutors


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Slueths wary of OC slimming1.6 Lakh 'Stars' want group IV jobsMalls told to adhere to parking ruleGreen channel scheme in effectPolitical posts after CM's tour Cops stall withdrawal of casesRakshana APMDC deal illegal: CentreNPA chief to Head CRPF

Education

The sub category figures for education are telling. School education (10.5 per cent)received less than one third of the coverage given to higher education (36.4). Fourteen

per cent of the coverage relates to events such as perhaps institutional functions.

How did individual newspapers do? The most education related coverage was inEenadu, 56. 5 per cent of it devoted to higher education. Gujarat Samachar camesecond in frequency of coverage, but 35 percent of this belonged to the miscellaneous

category. Among English newspapers, the Times of India in Gujarat had the mostcoverage. Dinathanti, Dainik Jagran, and the Anand Bazar Patrika devoted a higher percentage of their total education coverage to government schemes on education thanthe other newspapers. Miscellaneous news relating to student politics, or strikes or incidents in educational institutions amount to 20 per cent of the total coverage.

How did individual newspapers do? The most education related coverage was inEenadu, 56. 5 per cent of it devoted to higher education. Gujarat Samachar camesecond in frequency of coverage, but 35 percent of this belonged to the miscellaneouscategory. Among English newspapers, the Times of India in Gujarat had the mostcoverage. Dinathanti, Dainik Jagran, and the Anand Bazar Patrika devoted a higher percentage of their total education coverage to government schemes on education than


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the other newspapers. Miscellaneous news relating to student politics, or strikes or incidents in educational institutions amount to 20 per cent of the total coverage.

Sample education headlines from Gujarat Samachar:

Guj Uni Senate Polls: Form Submission From Today OnwardsIf Mistakes Found In Std 10 Forms, School Will Be Fined Rs 100Bjp Rebels Protest At Party OfficeElection For Two Seats Of Professor Category Of Syndicate On 4Th500 Candidature Forms For 86 Seats Of Gu SenateStudents Filled Forms For Externals, But Did Not Get The MaterialsPhoto: Vs Hospital StrikeStudents Without Amenities Succeeding Is Worth A Salute.Election Of86 Seats Of Gujarat University Senate On 28Th November

50% Students Passed In Ph.D., M.Phil. ResultsErrors In Filling Forms Of Externals Of CollegeGuardians Demand That School Board Exams Be Preponed17 New Admissions In Medical-Paramedical.Pradip Prajapati, An Economics Teacher At The Social Sciences BhavanSuspended16 Professors Of Various Depts Of Gu PromotedScarce Attendance In Schools In Anticipation Of The JudgeStudent Unions On Protest

Science

Science coverage in our newspapers is minimal, 1.1 per cent of the total. In the periodmonitored 20 per cent of the coverage related to space, 7.2 per cent to biotechnologyand miscellaneous coverage constituted 62.8 per cent. Some of this relates to newtechnological products: munitions or gadgets, or cars or planes.

Environment:

The environment coverage across newspapers is divided up fairly equally amongclimate coverage (22.9), and reporting of floods (18.5 per cent) and wildlife (19.4 per cent). Pollution related stories account for 9.6 per cent of environment coverage.

Conflict

In the period under review conflict related news forms 2.1 per cent of the total, withthe highest occurence by far reported in the West Bengal newspapers and the lowest in


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Gujarat. Gujarat Samachar had just three conflict related stories in 30 days. The Thegreatest proportion of conflict news relates to Maoism, 54.4 per cent of a total of 425items in ten newspapers over a 30 day sampling period. Naxal-related conflict news isthe highest in the following papers: Eenadu (88 per cent of the papers total conflictcoverage, ), Ananda Bazar Patrika (83 per cent of its total) and Deccan Chronicle (82.1per cent). The second highest category of conflict news relates to militancy (21.4pc).

In The Hindu 39.4 per cent of its conflict news is devoted to communal conflict, inDinathanti it is 10.3 per cent. Dainik Jagran devotes 8.2 per cent to communal conflict.In the rest of the papers there is virtually no coverage of communal conflict, except for 1.1 per cent in the Anand Bazar Patrika. Of the 51 conflict related stories in theHindustan Times 43 per cent related to militancy related news, 47 per cent toNaxalism.

Infrastructure related news forms 4.6 per cent of the total. Of this 46.3 per cent relates

to transport, 12.4 per cent to roads, 10.2 per cent to land acquisition. And 8.8 per centto power.

Rural coverage

The study looked at the origin and focus of news items to determine the nature of coverage and the level at which it originates. In terms of origin the single highestcategory of news was national in origin27.7 per cent. The second highest categorywas city-based news originating at the state level constituted 22.3 per cent. Four per

cent of the news originated at the district level and 3.2 per cent at the sub district level.Taken from the point of view of the focus of the news, 62.3 percent of the news wasgeneral in nature, 30.4 per cent urban, and 3.1 per cent rural. The Bengali papers hadthe highest focus on rural news, with 11.5 per cent of Ananda Bazar Patrikas newsclassified as rural, and 6.9 per cent of the news in the Telegraph.

What constituted rural news for these newspapers? Overall it is miscellaneous innature. But given the contentious, rural cadre based nature of politics in West Bengalthere is a substantial amount of political news, or rather political violence related newsoriginating from the rural areas in Ananda Bazar Patrika. One third of the items coded

as rural in focus relate to Maoist, Trinamul or CPM politics including violent incidents.In the Telegraph, some 18 per cent of the rural focus stories are politics and politicalviolence related.

The newspapers in which news with a rural focus is negligible are Gujarat Samachar,TOI Ahmedabad, and Dinathanti. It must be said here that papers with daily districtsupplements could be putting their rural focus news there, so it does not figure in themain editions. That would apply to Eenadu.


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Sample rural focus headlines in Anand Bazar Patrika:

Bomb,Baseball Bat In Bankura Explosion SiteBuddha'S Assurance Fails, Anita Forgets College Cuts PaddyCheque Distribution Begins At Nandigram

Don'T Be Late, Sumana's Life-Message To VillagesTwo Families Search For 2 Daughters In The PujaGun Battle Continues In Haroa Village, 5 Injured2 Groups Clashed, Shason Sensitive

3 Snatchers Beaten To Death

Maoist Kill 3 Including Ration Dealer Rehabilitation Package InVain, No Maoist Coming ToSurrender Cpm-Police Official Meet On Shason

Gender

Out of 20,797 stories coded for content, a total of 117 or 0.6 percent relate to gender issues. The Hindustan Times and Times of India were the only ones to focus on sexselection at all,

Of the crime and violence headlines, 13.5 per cent relate to gender.

Much of the gender coverage is miscellaneous:

Sample headlines from Hindustan Times:

Countrys first all women Police battalion

Pop attacks gay marriage in spain

Extend commission to women in Army: SC

I want a Delhi where women don't live in fear

Court relief for woman officer

SC to examine palimony for live in partner Women glad but men grumble over ladies only metrocoachFree DTC ride for woman today

When gender is an excuse


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Women protest burqa ban by wearing hot pants

Religion

Religion dominated the category of news classified as society-related, partly because of the Ayodhya coverage, and partly because the study was conducted over two monthsspanning the festival season. Of society-related coverage in these papers (6.6per cent)religion-related news constitutes 74.5 per cent.

* As a percentage of Social

Health

Health issues related coverage constituted 2.9 per cent of the total news but within thisresearch and disease dominate as subcategories. Medical research news is ofteninternational in origin.

Sample news headlines from Deccan Chronicle in which 56 per cent of health news is in

this category:Women find it easier to say sorryPredictors, key to early diagnosisFear of using tech begins in wombAlR craft noise bad for heart, says Swiss studyPills can trigger female jealousySon's wife takes toll on mom-in-lawIVF gives taller kids: Study7-year itch really lasts for 11 yearsFor women mums-in-law are no jokeWomen don't sweat as much as menFlirting style key to relationshipsDrink coffee everyday, keep Parkinson's at bayAlcohol deadlier than dope, reveals study

As for disease, these sample headlines are from Dainik Jagran


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Dengue larva found on 5000places in DelhiNotice issued to 4 hospitals due to found larva of dengueRamlinga Raju discharged from HospitalThe child killed in dengue riotSwine flu risk is increasingHigh profile prisioners is target of sickner The players will use to reserve lane from todayAim to removed polio totally: SheelaStop dengue campaign stopped due to lack of money.Heart is beating near to neckVice president Hamid Ansari`s mother admit in trama centre35 crore for control on chikengunia.Mayor suffers from viral.

International

International news constitutes 4.9 per cent of all news in the study. Given theperiod in which the monitoring was done, covering the Commonwealth Games andthe Obama visit, both Delhi papers, Dainik Jagran and the Hindustan Times, had afair amount of international coverage.

Sources:

The study also looked at sources cited in the news. Thirty one (31.0) per cent of all news was attributed to politicians, including ministers, state and central, partyspokespeople, MPs, panchayat leaders. Attribution to government officials at anylevel accounted for 12.9 per cent of the sourcing. The third highest category wasuniformed personnel which included members of the police, army, navy, air force,

BSF and so on (10.6 per cent). The common man or man on the street accountedfor 8.3 per cent of those quoted in stories.

Contrast between the English and language newspapers

All the English newspapers had more business and economy coverage, than politicalcoverage. With regional language newspapers it was the reverse with the exception of


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Gujarat Samachar . The Hindustan Times has a separate four page business pullout,when there is more advertising available it becomes six page. But because the mainpaper was taken for monitoring and analysis its business and economy coverage doesnot show the true extent of its coverage. It devotes a full page to stocks every day,within the business supplement. So clearly in actual fact, not reflected by this study, itsbusiness coverage is way ahead of its political coverage.

Dinathanti too has more business coverage than the study indicates because it carries apage of news from the Economic Times.

International coverage in terms of stories originating abroad is clearly higher in all theEnglish papers, ranging from 25.5 to 14.9 in the English newspapers, and from 12.1 to7.3 in the language papers.

The other clear distinction between the two sets of papers relates to gender coverage.This is very low in all the papers, but with the exception of Deccan Chronicle , higher inthe English papers than in the language papers.

Eeenadu of Andhra Pradesh was in many ways the newspaper with the most range of coverage. It had more stories than any other paper. Of all the papers it had the mostpolitical coverage, as well as the most agriculture, science and governance-relatednews. It had more economy and business coverage than the Deccan Chronicle, and far more than other regional language papers except Gujarat Samachar. It also had thelowest incidence of crime and violence news among all the newspapers.

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This study was done by thehoot.org, in collaboration with Panos, with a grant fromHivos.

Study supervisors: Padmaja Shaw, HyderabadAjitha Menon and Saadia Azim, KolkataAyesha Khan, Ahmedabad,Sangeetha Rajeesh, Chennai

Sevanti Ninan, DelhiProject director Sevanti Ninan

Collaborating institutions

Cuttin Edge services, KolkataCentre for Advocacy and Research (CFAR), New Delhi


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Data correction and analysis: Madhav Analysis

Coders:

Anik De, Purnima, KolkataC Ashish Singh, Brijesh Solanki, Sunita, AhmedabadManisha Dixit, Shalini Choudhury, DelhiK Surya, Catherine Gilon , ChennaiGitanjali, Himabindu Hyderabad

The study is indebted to Aarthi Pai of CFAR for her guidance.

Documents

Content Study of Regional Newspapers by the Hoot[1]